Europe Braces for Tsunami of Afghan Migrants

by Soeren Kern • August 26, 2021 at 5:00 am

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe.
"I am clearly opposed to us now taking in more people. That will not happen under my chancellorship. Taking in people who then cannot be integrated is a huge problem for us as a country." — Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
"As minister of the interior, I am primarily responsible for the people living in Austria. Above all, this means protecting social peace and the welfare state over the long term." — Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer.
"It is clear to us that 2015 must not be repeated. We will not be able to solve the Afghanistan issue by migration to Germany." — Paul Ziemiak, general secretary of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.
Afghan criminals, including rapists and drug traffickers, who previously had been deported to Afghanistan, have now returned to Germany on evacuation flights. Upon arrival in Germany, they immediately submitted new asylum applications.
"Our country will not be a gateway to Europe for illegal Afghan migrants." — Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi.
"We need to remind our European friends of this fact: Europe — which has become the center of attraction for millions of people — cannot stay out of the Afghan refugee problem by harshly sealing its borders to protect the safety and wellbeing of its citizens. Turkey has no duty, responsibility or obligation to be Europe's refugee warehouse." — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe. Pictured: Afghan asylum seekers disembark from an evacuation flight from Afghanistan, at the Torrejon de Ardoz air base in Spain, on August 24, 2021. (Photo by Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images)

The Taliban conquest of Afghanistan is poised to trigger an unprecedented wave of Afghan migration to Europe, which is bracing for the arrival of potentially hundreds of thousands — possibly even millions — of refugees and migrants from the war-torn country.

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, expressing an ominous sense of foreboding, has estimated that up to five million people will try to leave Afghanistan for Europe. Such migration numbers, if they materialize, would make the previous migration crisis of 2015 — when more than a million people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East made their way to Europe — pale by comparison.

Since 2015, around 570,000 Afghans — almost exclusively young men — have requested asylum in the European Union, according to EU estimates. In 2020, Afghanistan was the EU's second-biggest source of asylum applicants after those from Syria.

Continue Reading Article

Why Is Congress on the Sidelines as Afghanistan Burns?

by Pete Hoekstra • August 26, 2021 at 4:00 am

But the oversight -- the real-world exercise of the constitutional separation of powers, checking and balancing each other -- that is what our host leadership wanted to avoid.
Importantly, it was the leadership--not those who served under them, often on the front lines--who resented the very thought of oversight and resisted at every turn. The troops and embassy staff were always thrilled that we took the time and ran the risk to see first-hand what was happening... Members of Congress, on the other hand, were just everyday people who knew nothing about what needed to be done or how to do it.
People are dying. America is suffering humiliation. And the president and the bureaucracy are trying to get away with it. Hats off to Meijer and Moulton, both military veterans, by the way, for showing us all that Congress is an equal branch of government -- and for refusing to let the Biden administration cover up its catastrophic failure in Afghanistan.

Congratulations to the two members of Congress, Peter Meijer (right) and Seth Moulton (left), who had the exceptional courage to pay an unannounced visit to Kabul. The situation in Afghanistan is screaming for immediate congressional oversight. (Moulton image by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images; Meijer image by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Congratulations to the two members of Congress, Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who had the exceptional courage to pay an unannounced visit to Kabul. The situation in Afghanistan is screaming for immediate congressional oversight. Right now, before it's too late, Congress might still be able to exercise an influence over, and perhaps help change, the disastrous Afghanistan policy of the Biden administration. Americans should applaud Meijer and Moulton for bucking the corrupt Washington system, despite intense pressure to bow to it.

Continue Reading Article